Shouts and gunfire and explosions raged on behind Meryl as she sprinted away from the scene, her lungs burning as she tried to keep up with Milly's impossibly long strides. Within moments they had reached the area where they had left the Thomas earlier. The creatures were baying loudly in distress, clearly terrified by the noise, jostling each other and scratching at the dirt beneath them. Breathless, Meryl pulled herself up into the saddle quickly and dug her knees into the animal's sides, pulling the reins sharply to lead the Thomas in the opposite direction.

"Wait!" Milly called. On Meryl's left, she had brought her Thomas to a halt and was looking back over her shoulder. "What about Mr. Vash?" she asked, worriedly.

"What?" Meryl said, confused and anxious to get the townspeople out of harm's way. "Milly, we don't even know which is—"

"I'm here, I'm here!" someone shrieked. Meryl glanced back and saw only a flash of red before a weight landed on the Thomas behind her and nearly threw her off. The animal staggered and bayed loudly again, disgruntled. Meryl fell forward and had to grasp fistfuls of the Thomas's bristly mane with both hands just to keep herself mounted.

"What the—" she began, but two gangly arms seized her around the middle and squeezed so hard she couldn't breathe.

"Go go go!" shrieked the same voice, loud in her ear.

"Mr. Vash!" said Milly, happily.

Meryl hadn't taken up the reins again, but the man behind her must have dug his heels into the Thomas's sides because it started forward at a dead sprint. The sudden acceleration pushed her back against his chest, and she wondered briefly how he had managed to get himself untied. Still unable to breathe and nearing the point of blacking out, Meryl slammed her elbow up behind her, connecting solidly with either his face or the side of his head. There was an unintelligible scream at a pitch that made Meryl wince, but it had worked. His grip on her had loosened considerably, and she took up the reins of the Thomas again and urged it on.

Meryl's heart was hammering away in her chest, adrenaline pumping it on in a fury. As they rode further and further away from the battle, Meryl felt herself calming considerably. She had a plan, and was back in control of the situation again, at least as much as was possible. She took slow, deep breaths through her nose.

Then she became more aware of the man sitting behind her. His chest was warm against her back and, she noticed with great annoyance, his heart was beating a slow, steady time. She glanced down.

His long arms could probably wrap around her three times, she realized, but right now they loosely circled her waist and held her just tightly enough to keep him from sliding off the back of the Thomas. His right hand was resting not uncomfortably on her left hip and his other hand crossed over and held his own right elbow.

He was so tall he could rest his chin on the top of her head, and he tried to do so once, but Meryl snapped her head backwards into his throat. She smiled to herself at the choking noises, and was pleased when he didn't make another attempt.

A particularly loud explosion made Meryl wince. She looked back, then grimaced when she couldn't see over the man's shoulder. Scowling, she tried to lean out far enough to see—but not far enough to fall off the Thomas.

"Ooh!" said the man, suddenly. Meryl was startled by the exclamation, and then shocked to feel one of his hands start to walk its fingers down her thigh toward her knee. She might have snapped her neck, how quickly she spun around again to look down at the arm he was extending forward.

"What the hell do you think you're—" she began, but by then his long fingers had slipped into the front saddle-bag and returned again with a box of donuts.

"Aha!" he said, sounding pleased.

"Those are not for you!" Meryl said, though as she said it there was a huge bellow from behind them that could only have come from the giant and she realized how stupid the situation was; she's trying to argue about goddamn baked goods while two maniacs were in the process of destroying each other and everything around them the process?

"Danke, danke!" said the man, opening the box and settling it in Meryl's lap. The hand holding the box in place rested on Meryl's thigh, arm wrapped loosely around her middle again. His other hand was stuffing donuts into his mouth with impressive speed. Meryl thought she heard Milly giggle but when she turned, glaring, the other woman's attention seemed determinedly set on the reins of her Thomas.

He was probably getting crumbs in her hair. She gritted her teeth so hard her jaw ached.

Another explosion went off, the largest yet, and the whole mountain seemed to shudder beneath them. The Thomas stumbled, practically screaming, scrabbling to get their feet back under them as Meryl and Milly hauled back on the reins. Several yarz of the rock mountain path had simply dropped away beside them and the man sitting behind Meryl shrieked again, dropping the donuts in alarm and tightening his grip on her.

Meryl let out a strange whuff noise as all the air was forced out of her lungs again.

"Sorry!" said the man in a sing-song voice, not sounding sorry at all.

He released her, and once she had her breath back she chanced a glance over the edge of the mountain. She gripped the reins of the Thomas so tightly her knuckles were white. That cascade of rock—and donuts—was headed straight down, probably onto the heads and houses of the townsfolk.

Shit. Just warning them wasn't going to be enough, the whole place would be destroyed before they could even get there. Meryl hesitated.

"Ma'am?" Milly could tell something was wrong.

"We have to go back," Meryl said, finally. She slid down out of her saddle, danced away quickly before the Thomas could take a snap at her elbow, and looked up at the man still astride the animal above her.

"There's just not enough time if they keep on fighting like this," Meryl said. "They're going to kill each other and destroy the whole area in the process." She turned to Milly, saying, "We'll go back and try to stop them, or at least slow things down enough for the town to evacuate." Milly nodded determinedly. Looking back to the man, Meryl asked, "Will you go on and give the order?"

"You're going back," he said, and his demeanor startled Meryl. His voice was even, and he regarded her intently; for a moment she thought she saw that man other man inside him, the man that sometimes appeared behind those yellow glasses.

But another explosion shook the mountain and she winced. "Look," she said, digging around in her pockets. Her fingers closed on a crumpled scrap of paper and she held it up to the man, pressing it into his hand. "Here's $$10. Just please, please hurry and tell the town to evacuate?"

Meryl reached one hand up to Milly and the younger woman leaned down in the saddle, hauling Meryl effortlessly up by the arm to settle in behind her on the Thomas. Meryl regarded the man intently again, but he was just staring at the $$10 bill in his hand.

The muscles of Meryl's forehead were aching again as she watched him just sit there.

Come on, idiot...

The man just stared down at the money in his hand, and then up to her face. The hair on the back of Meryl's neck stood on end and a chill raced down her spine. It was the other man looking at her now, his razor-sharp green eyes meeting hers as though trying to see right into her thoughts, but she blinked and he was gone. His face split in a wide grin and he gave her an enthusiastic thumbs-up before turning the Thomas around and racing down toward the town.

Meryl was a little shaken from the interaction—what the hell just happened?—but Milly kicked their Thomas into gear and Meryl had to focus on what was happening now, clinging to the other woman as the animal galloped at full speed. She glanced back over her shoulder once at the man's retreating figure, the sun's heat reflecting on the stone and making him no more than a red blur in the distance, and hoped she had made the right decision.

She was pretty sure what she was doing next was the result of a questionable decision at best. Running back into a battle she had no side in? It had practically killed them once already. But what else could be done?

Even as Meryl thought this, silence fell on the mountain, an almost tangible absence of sound. Milly made a happy little noise.

"That's good, they've stopped fighting!" Milly called over her shoulder.

Meryl found this a mixed blessing; yes, an end to the battle was good news for the town, but it also probably meant that one of those men had killed the other. Either way, it was going to be a mess for her to sort out.

Immediately Meryl felt sickened with herself. A man was dead, and her concern was the amount of paperwork it made for her?

"Just hurry," she told Milly. They were riding into the debris of the battle now, lingering smoke and dust obscuring everything around them.

"I can't see anything in all this smoke..." Milly muttered.

Meryl suddenly felt the Thomas stumble, and then was pitched forward into Milly's back as the ground simply gave way beneath them. The animal was baying loudly, desperately trying to find footing as the ground slanted down away from them, its clawed feet unable to stand in the small rockslide they had tumbled into. Within moments the Thomas was completely out of control, sending Milly flying and hurling Meryl down almost under its hooves.

The ground beneath her carried Meryl relentlessly down the steep hillside, stones of all sizes traveling alongside her, under her, over her, and all she could do was try to shield her face and pray she and Milly would reach the bottom—however far away that was—alive.

After an agonizing half-minute or so, the rockslide seemed to slow and Meryl felt the ground leveling out. She rolled to a halt and was covered with nearly a foot of stone and dirt before she could manage to raise herself up on hands and knees, coughing.

"Milly!" Meryl called, though it only came out as a hoarse croak before she coughed again. She pushed herself up to her feet and staggered sideways, falling again, dizzy from their rapid descent.

"Ma'am, I'm here," Milly called. She sounded alright, at least, and Meryl was glad of it. She made her way toward Milly's voice through the smoke and settling dust, finding the other woman sitting near the Thomas, her right hand clutching her left shoulder.

The Thomas was dead. Its head lay at an unnatural angle from its shoulders and Meryl guessed its neck had snapped somewhere during the fall down the mountain. She counted herself lucky to have escaped the same fate, and hurried to Milly's side. The younger woman was crying, and Meryl was terrified.

"What's wrong? What happened?" she asked, kneeling and gently trying to pull Milly's hand from her shoulder. She could see blood soaking into the fabric of Milly's cloak, but that didn't seem to be what was bothering her.

"The poor thing," Milly said, her lip trembling. Meryl realized she was talking about the Thomas, and watched her stroking the dead animal's neck.

"Oh, Milly," said Meryl. "You can't worry about that now." Privately, she marveled at other woman's sense of compassion, to be more troubled by the creature's death than her own injury, which—Meryl saw now—was a ragged gash, unmistakably caused by the clawed foot of the Thomas itself.

"Hey, who's there?"

A voice called through the smoke and dust and Meryl froze.

"Don't move," she mouthed to Milly.

A sudden burst of gunfire out of the smoke made Meryl throw herself nearly flat on the ground.

"Don't shoot!" Milly called. "We aren't your enemies!"

There was silence.

After a few moments, Meryl could see a shape becoming clearer in the smoke and dust. A man stepped into view, holding a heavy machine gun with overly-large hands unsuited for his body. He caught sight of her and Milly and his eyebrows jumped skyward.

"Hey, it's those two broads that were here earlier!" he shouted over his shoulder, not taking his eyes off them. Meryl kept her eye on his gun, sizing him up. "Come on," he said, gesturing at them with the gun barrel, leading them on into the smoke behind him. Meryl and Milly shared a glance, and then followed.

Within moments the air had cleared and Meryl could see where they were. The giant and his league of henchmen stood in a loose circle again, all now focused intently on her and her partner. They seemed to all be standing in the center of a huge crater, a great bowl carved out of the rock by Ruth Loose's explosives and the giant's metal boomerang.

"Where is he?" the giant demanded, stepping forward and addressing Milly, presumably because she was closer to his height than Meryl—though not by much. "That guy you left with," he clarified. "The Humanoid Typhoon."

"What—him?" Meryl asked, dumbfounded.

"You mean Mr. Vash?" Milly asked, looking confused.

"That man is not Vash the Stampede!" Meryl shouted, yet again. How many times...?

"You let him get away!" growled the giant. "It was so damned hard to track him down and now—" He stopped abruptly, his eyes taking on a manic gleam. "He's gone into town, he could be iles away by now!" he bellowed, his great hands tearing green hair from his mohawk as his upper lip curled in a snarl.

"He can't have gotten that far still tied up," said Ruth Loose. He was standing nearby, leaning on his rifle and picking dirt from under his nails. Meryl could have told him the man had untied himself, but she didn't bother. "We'll string up these two first," the man continued, waving a hand detachedly in Meryl and Milly's direction.

"Why?" asked the giant. "You think he'll come back for them?"

"Maybe, maybe not," Loose said, shrugging. He smoothed down the corners of his moustache and leered at Meryl with an expression she didn't particularly like. "Either way, you'll have them at your mercy." Loose nodded toward some of the giant's henchmen, whose eyes had suddenly taken on a hungry, determined gleam. "I think some of your boys are particularly interested in the idea."

Meryl's heart seemed to sink into her stomach.

"You're a sick man," the giant said, grinning. "But I like the way you think." The men closed in a circle around the two women and the giant reached toward Meryl with a hand large enough to wrap around her waist, a smirk on his face.

This is so not good.